Written by new-contact on Feb 24, 2015. Posted in On Location

Studio Babelsberg in Germany celebrates Oscar wins for The Grand Budapest Hotel

Studio Babelsberg near Berlin has celebrated the success of Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, which has added four Oscars to its awards tally. The movie filmed on the border between Germany and Poland, with Studio Babelsberg as a production partner.

Border town Görlitz stood in for the film’s fictional Republic of Zubrowka and a local disused department store became The Grand Budapest Hotel itself.

“These prizes are particularly an honour for the film production location, Germany,” said Christoph Fisser, chief operating officer of Studio Babelsberg and an executive producer on the film.

Fisser went on to congratulate the film’s Babelsberg crew, and the funding institutions that helped make the movie possible, including the German Federal Film Fund and Berlin-Brandenburg.

“Films like The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Hunger Games or Steven Spielberg's St James Place (which recently wrapped at Babelsberg), show that here in Germany we are able to work at the highest international standard,” added Carl Woebcken, chief executive officer of Studio Babelsberg and a fellow executive producer on the movie.

“The tradition of filmmaking, the excellent handcraft and the various filming locations are important driving forces, why directors want to film in Germany. We can be proud of that. However, it is indispensable to create suitable conditions in terms of film subsidies so that international filmmakers will still produce their films in Germany in the future.”

Spielberg’s St James Place has been the highest-profile film of recent months to shoot in Berlin. Tom Hanks stars in the true story of a US lawyer sent to Russia at the height of the Cold War to negotiate the release of a downed spy plane pilot.

For the past few months Studio Babelsberg has been developing a new exterior standing set build called Neue Berliner Straße – or New Berlin Street – which marks an investment for the studio of more than EUR 12 million.

(Images: Fox Searchlight)